Ruth 2:5And Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, "Whose young woman is this?"

Ruth 2:7She has said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' So she came out and has continued from morning until now, except that she rested a short time in the shelter."

Treasury of Scripture

And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab:

Genesis 15:2 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

Genesis 24:2 And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh:

Genesis 39:4 And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.

It is the

Ruth 1:16,19,22 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: …

(6, 7) The steward gives a detailed account of Ruth. She is "the (rather "a") Moabitish damsel," she is a foreigner [as such she had a special claim to the gleaning, Leviticus 19:9-10]. She is the daughter-in-law of Naomi; and he adds that her behaviour has been praiseworthy, for she asked leave before beginning to glean, and she has worked hard all day, save for a short interval of rest. It would seem that Boaz's visit to the field fell at the time when Ruth was thus resting: "This is her tarrying for a little in the house"; apparently, that is, some rude shelter from the heat set up in the field, like the lodge of Isaiah 1:8.

Verse 6. - And the young man who was set over the reapers replied and said, She is a Moabitish young woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. The young man had already received, no doubt from her own lips, particulars regarding the attractive stranger. Instead of the free definitive rendering of Luther and King James's English version, "the Moabitish damsel," it is better, with Michaelis, Wright, Raabe, to adhere to the original indefiniteness, "a Moabitish maiden." Note the Zeugmatic use of the word returned as applied here, as well as in Ruth 1:22, not only to Naomi, but also to Ruth. It is thus used on the same Zeugmatic principle as the word die in Genesis 47:19: "Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land?"